word.s

Star Gazing

nata1ia — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:06:40 GMT

www.worldwidetelescope.org Computer users now can fly through the universe, viewing stars, planets and celestial bodies as an astronomer would, with Tuesday's introduction of the Worldwide Telescope by Microsoft. The virtual service combines images and databases from every major telescope and astronomical organization in the world. Microsoft says it is providing the resource for free in memory of Jim Gray, the Microsoft researcher who disappeared last year while sailing his boat to the Farallon Islands on a trip to scatter his mother's ashes. The project is an extension of Gray's work. "I never imagined (the telescope) would be so beautiful," said Alexander Szalay, an astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins University who worked with Gray on astronomy projects for more than a decade. Gray was an expert in databases, and he came to be accepted as "a card-carrying member" of the astronomical community for his work in bringing astronomical data online, Szalay said. Point your cursor at a constellation, and the telescope will load all the objects near it and display them across the bottom of the screen. Pick one, and you'll be taken to it. Zoom in and out, view it through filters of different wavelengths - an infrared view, say, or x-ray - and right-click to pull up its name and more detail. Track the object's location in the sky - its ascension and declension - at the bottom right corner of your screen. Seeing objects in relation to each other is useful even for astronomers, Szalay said. "They are used to looking at (singular) images, but ... not beyond to the whole." The worldwide telescope is part of a much larger scientific project. A special version is being developed for astronomers, and it's being considered as one way to visualize data in the Virtual Observatory, a project by the National Science Foundation to integrate all astronomical data online. But Microsoft's goal is to appeal to amateur astronomers, teachers and kids, people who might never get a chance to look at the Milky Way through a telescope as large and prestigious as the Hubble or the Chandra. Similar astronomy projects exist, including Google Sky and a predecessor to the online telescope called SkyServer that Gray and Szalay helped build. But the worldwide telescope goes beyond these, Szalay said, because of the "artistry" that people at Microsoft Research brought to the project. The person most responsible for the telescope's interface is Curtis Wong, who joined Microsoft after a career developing multimedia CD-ROMs, interactive books and an online art exhibit that was backed by Intel, one of his previous employers. Wong has more than 45 patents pending in interactive television and similar areas, but astronomy is a passion. Growing up in Los Angeles, he didn't see the Milky Way until he was a teenager and got far enough away from the city lights to see the night sky on a trip to the mountains with the local astronomical society. A meteor landed near him and lit up the ground, leaving a trail of smoke. "I was totally blown away by how many stars there were," he said. Wong has created introductory tours of the worldwide telescope and also provided tools so people can make and share their own tours. Several organizations, including Astronomy Magazine and Sky & Telescope, are growing online communities connected to the telescope, and he expects to see more of those. "People have been looking at the sky since it existed, but there's been no way to share that," he said. "Anybody can go in (to the telescope) and tell a story or share their favorite places." Astronomers and other big thinkers have been looking forward to the worldwide telescope for months. People who attended the TED Conference in Monterey in February got a peek at it, and Microsoft has been showing it to astronomical organizations and asking for their advice. "I was impressed," said James Manning, executive director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, who saw the telescope last year. Both the worldwide telescope and Google Sky have tremendous potential to teach the public, he said, adding, "I think it will be fun to see how these products develop over time." Wong expects the telescope to keep changing. It will start with 12 terabytes of data - the equivalent of 1.2 million books-and get larger as people contribute new images and older ones that they've translated to an online format. Harvard College Observatory, for instance, is looking at ways to digitize half a million photographic images of stars in the northern and southern hemispheres that it recorded on glass plates between 1880 and 1985. Images like these will turn the telescope into a space-time machine, Wong said, allowing viewers to compare objects in the modern night sky with how they looked years and years ago. "You can't see that on normal time," he said. The telescope "will keep getting better." Find the Worldwide Telescope at www.worldwidetelescope.org. E-mail Deborah Gage at dgage@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

increase vocab = feed the hungry

nata1ia — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:30:47 GMT

this originated from my hometown. ;) test your vocabulary and earn points that will be matched by weight in rice paid for by advertisers and sent to areas across the world who are in deficit of food. (...primarily refugees in Bangladesh) http://www.freerice.com Politically active, financially reactive, and creatively proactive, John Breen has been struggling to do something about world hunger for the past 20 years. In January of 2007, he started Poverty. com to educate the well-fed Internet masses about the need for international action to feed the 850 million people worldwide without enough to eat. By the spring of 2007, the self-employed computer programmer from Bloomington, IN faced a different kind of struggle: His son wouldn't study for his SATs. "He hated studying vocabulary," explains Breen, "like normal people, including me. "Killing two birds with one stone, Breen devised FreeRice. com, a humble online vocabulary game with the not-so-humble goal of ending world hunger. In an era of increasingly sophisticated browser-based games, FreeRice. com is anachronistic. Simple and silent, the site features the game itself, a rotating banner ad, and virtually nothing else. The rules are as simple as the layout: You are presented with a word and four possible definitions. Choose the correct answer, and the quiz becomes harder--and FreeRice. com donates 20 grains of rice to feed the hungry, primarily refugees in Bangladesh. It sounds simple, even simple-minded, so it's hard to imagine such a game could actually make a difference. But in the four months since FreeRice. com went live, more than 17 billion grains of rice have been distributed--enough to feed 850,000 people for a day. As the days grew shorter in 2007, FreeRice. com spread across the Internet like a philanthropic LOLcat, propelled by early notice on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and a Facebook support group that garnered 85,000 members. FreeRice. com's traffic continues to grow. Traffic brings advertisers. Advertisers keep the rice flowing. FreeRice. com is addictive for the same reasons most good games are: It's challenging, it rewards success with progressive difficulty, and it empowers players. "It's a lucky combination. I didn't think the vocabulary would be fun. I kind of just settled on it. It turns out people just got addicted to it, grinding the levels," Breen says, with no apparent knowledge that the word "grind" has a special entry in the lexicon of gamer hell. Breen did more than just make a word game. He convinced the United Nations World Food Programme--the world's largest humanitarian organization, with a $2.8 billion relief budget--to partner with him. Jennifer Parmelee, the public affairs officer at the WFP, says FreeRice. com isn't really all that much about the rice. "The gift that John Breen has given us, which in a way outshines any amount of money, is that of public awareness," she says. "This is an invisible issue.." But for the 500,000 people a day who mitigate staff-meeting boredom with FreeRice. com instead of FreeCell, the issue is just a little less invisible. And for the thousands of refugees in Bangladesh who are living on John Breen's rice, the world is just a little less cruel. I think we all should give this a try, since it is for a good cause.

altruism

nata1ia — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:07:30 GMT

a recollection of: how i came to realize that a sacrifice i made in the end benefited another person who i discovered was another me therefore in the end i benefited myself anywayz. a self altruistic love experience. two months ago i answered a craigslist ad for a room with a bathroom in an old hotel-style building. the room i felt was too small and would be more trouble than to just wait till i found the right place. even though the current living situation was compromisingly stifling to my self. today a girl called me back on an ad i answered two weeks ago. which happened to be in the same building AND floor as the room i checked out two months ago. on the way into the elevator this younger kid with a huge fro asks me if i want to smoke a blunt from the lobby side of the elevator doors as they are closing. uhh.. i say.. maybe when you come back down, he says through the closing doors. ok... i think, why do i always get singled out.. i check out the room and meet the potential roommates. the room spacious and sunny, roommates cool, artists and musicians.. this = just the kinda space i need. i leave the apartment and walk down the hallway, there by the elevators is the kid... i was wondering if you were coming back down... he says uh.. did you watch to see what floor i got off of? he says something I'm not fully hearing him cause I'm thinking and i say: isn't that considered stalking? really this happens to me often enough i feel that way only i realize what he was trying to say as he is also stumbling over the same words to explain stalking's psychotic, this is pursuing.. (ya and there's also a fine line between genius and insanity.) its ok though, i feel no real threat, he just seems bored more than anything. we get in the elevator and he tells me he lives in one of the apartments on that floor. -the ones around the corner that only have a room and a bathroom. -OOH.. no way.. i checked out one of those rooms a few months ago we take the elevator to the lobby and walk outside. -wait.. when did you move into the room? -a couple of months ago... -its room 515 right? -yes. -that's the room i looked at.. ha-ha.. it was waay too small for me. -yeah its very small but the way I look at it, it could be worse. yea. i say in agreement. he sparks his blunt. and before i was thinking id pass, now i accept against my better judgment for this sort of scenario seems to always lead me into some sort of trouble. (fortunately, it didnt) he walks with me to catch my bus, and were chatting and asking each other various questions to make conversation. i have to ask him curiously how old he is for i sense hes a youngen. -17 -why you living on your own? -my mom and i arnt getting along we talk some more.. hes a cool kid. involved in volunteer philanthropy work. i say: soo strange that you live in the room i looked at but passed up. AND then the only other time i visit the building we meet. strange things like this happen to me alot .. just last week this man invited me to his relaxation center to use a sensory deprivation tank.. and when i was leaving i noticed that he had one of those "by day calendars" and the days hadn't been pulled since my birthday last year.. which was almost 9 months ago. very strange. and the person had a lot of important info to share with me that i need to hear right then. ?what does it all mean?? i say i pay attention to these synchronicities. they must have meaning but what.? some say i read waaay to into things.. i don't buy that though.. there is always something to be learned gained or loosed in these situations.. and i feel that they are personal synchronistic signs. with meaning to be deciphered ANYWAY.... so the kid asks me when my birthday is... i tell him and i ask him his... our birthdays are within 4 days of each other separated by 11 years. so.. ok that's cool but not that odd.. then we start talking about school he wants to get into UC Berkeley and study art, science, and math... i bite my tongue from telling him that's exactly what i want to study (in that order) when i go back to an academic university. (eventually he asks, and i tell him) this is when i had the realization that he's another incarnation of myself, and that by passing up the room, I opened the space up for he, whos another me to recieve.. for it was the spot he really needed in his life. (not that we are the absolute same.. just seems literly he's following my footsteps, born at the same time of year. wants to study the same subjects... and then we cross paths where this info all comes together..) make sense? self altruism ;P now if the universe could just make sure i get mine on time.. cause i need it, like, this time last year. . . .

survival skills

nata1ia — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:09:57 GMT

this huge spider who lives on my front porch strategically placed his web above the garbage cans to catch flies like the one he is preparing to devour here........ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjGkmgRSbC4 (wish my macro would focus better, its a bit unclear) anyone know what kind of spider this is???

...I NEED A RIDE...

nata1ia — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:03:06 GMT

iiiee.. so, my ride plans changed, last minute. now im wondering how im going to find a ride to BRC in time for the lunar eclipse (monday night/tues morning) ima geek and wanna gaze upon the sky in the dark desert night. any of you peops, riding up monday or before and have extra space?? i have minimal belongs in tote. including a bike. can help with gas money or driving. i have unreliable internet connection so, if you can be of assistance... send me a message and please call me also @ 510-326-5079. can anyone help me get the hella outta oakland? and to BRC? n.

MUMBAI

nata1ia — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:31:00 GMT

Bombay (Mumbai) created in collaboration with jon Z circa 2002 novice first attempt, in creation of such endeavors for each, using stock audio/footage, incomplete visuals. extended repeated beat. beginning, middle, and very end are worth the watch.. jon: beat moi: visual video transfered a little blurry... (ciu teru (remember to progress)) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4840225408163085795&hl=en ANYONE know how to embed video ... seems tribe isnt embed friendly..?? <embed style="width:400px; height:326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-4840225408163085795&hl=en" flashvars=""> </embed>

1940's hip hop

nata1ia — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 05:26:48 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4AtSJy0vuY

Invocation of the Shiva himself

nata1ia — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 19:47:06 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gykVhmA5CcE

wander to wonder

nata1ia — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 16:52:39 GMT

(sleep deprived stream of consciousness recollections of my first burning man experience) had an idea of what i was in for .. more or less the essence of an autonomous semi post-apocalyptic/ neo-futuristic/ artistic/ community created, lived in, then deconstructed mostly within the span of a week, definitely akin to scenes out of Mad Max and Tron and a punk'd/funk'd out beach party a go-go. (beach water:: a mirage) I discovered just as the population exploded I had mis envisioned the intensity and complexity,of taking up residence in BRC. oi vey...Ill say prior to intergration of this wackiness, im certain hours were spent wandering around in exploration, jaw dropped at times in full on bemusement.. wtf!... have i left earth... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxyjhofF6Lw .right on time... for this so-called existence in modern day society is stifleing to our selves. one way or another. ...like a heavy dust storm to our breathing air.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkoqZfPrDo mid week the population multiplied to short of 40,000? inhabitants within a small radius of space. resembling a over-populous-ness akin to say Tokyo ...-.. almost imposibble trying to find anyone without pre made plans, neighborhood knowledge, or commutative devices such as a radio or walkie talkies. or a high quality internal compass. you could most def. wind up roaming alone for days in search of familiar friends, which i did. and eventually crossed paths with. ... ... ... relinquish all control - trust in the flow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpJ56LgOjNA ..while. riding around the playa at night, the need to hone in on ones video gaming skills arose, maneuvering around open playa at rapid speeds in dark voided space keeping alert to and dodging passing beams of light, scanning the infinitely dark horizon, in search for camps or structures emitting enticing beats to move towards. the hunts exhausting. much like the heat of the blazing sun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-x8oR31HfE night turns to day. day turns to night. a fixed continous pattern. take notice to the cycles of the sun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKJwihPWrBY ..to.. escape the confinement of our attention fixed upon "clock time"....happily, since i have little concept of time, the most time conscience Ive been this past week was spacial, only.. ".. meet me at 8:15 and destiny, sharp" "don't be off course, show up at 8:30, and you've missed it entirely" instead of asking what time it is... one askes what time are you at??... disreguard to "clock time" while moments pass, allow moments to be far more momentous. and flexible. we need more. flexible. moments. in life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrDDLDV0tuo in the end ... i must love to say... "I dont want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day". .. ..the bass drum.. in appreciation to... all who collaborate their creative energies to errect cities in dust, and the never ending possibilities of incredible contraptions we create to amuse and entertain ourselves to no end. MY FAVORITE BURNING MAN MOMENT::... biking through camps with Kamala just after sun rise. whilst the mass of peops are slumbering soundly in their tents, Kamala's screaming "WAKE UP!! IT'S FUCKING BURNING MAN!! WAKE UP!!" at the top of her lungs and projected from a megaphone twice or thrice... a homosapien..? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4kP5vcvPGk all in all . highs and lows. INCREDIBLE. week.